The demand for yield-generating strategies around Bitcoin (BTC) is surging, especially from firms seeking liquidity without liquidating their BTC, according to Ryan Chow, co-founder and CEO of Solv Protocol.

During a fireside chat at the Token2049 conference in Dubai on May 1, Chow said institutional interest in Bitcoin yield products has grown exponentially over the past few years.

Initially, generating Bitcoin yield was nearly impossible. However, recent innovations like staking via proof-of-stake (PoS) protocols and delta-neutral trading strategies have made this possible.

Layer-1 and layer-2 advancements, such as Babylon, have made these strategies more viable. Babylon allows BTC holders to earn yield on their assets, which are used to provide security and liquidity for PoS networks.

“Bitcoin as the largest asset class here, you can stake your Bitcoin to secure the network […] that makes us feel like if it is the answer to really bring utility and also use case,” he said.

Ryan Chow, co-founder and CEO of Solv Protocol.

Related: Bitcoin DeFi project Solv to launch native token on Hyperliquid

Lending emerges dominant BTC financial use case

Chow noted that institutions mainly focus on Bitcoin when entering crypto due to its dominance in portfolios. Once they purchase Bitcoin, they lend it out to gain liquidity without selling.

Companies like Coinbase now offer up to $1 million in borrowing against Bitcoin. Platforms like Aave and Compound also enable instant borrowing.

Chow also praised public firms like Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) for helping normalize BTC as a treasury asset. “MSTR is a very successful derivatives kind of use case based on Bitcoin […] That’s also Bitcoin finance.”

In an April report, crypto fund issuer Bitwise revealed that the amount of Bitcoin held on the books of publicly traded companies rose by 16.1% in the first quarter of 2025.

The company detailed that Bitcoin holdings rose to around 688,000 BTC by the end of Q1, with firms adding 95,431 BTC over the quarter.

The value of the combined Bitcoin stacks rose around 2.2%, reaching a total combined value of $56.7 billion with a price per BTC of $82,445, the firm added.

Looking ahead, Chow said he expects over 100,000 BTC to enter ecosystems like Solana. “There should be more and more use cases come out,” he said.

Related: Solv launches Bitcoin staking token on Solana

Solv launches Sharia-compliant yield products

Chow also mentioned the firm’s recently launched Sharia-compliant Bitcoin yield product called SolvBTC.core, which generates yield by securing the Core blockchain network and engaging in onchain DeFi activities while adhering to Islamic finance principles.

“Sharia compliance is something that we prepared for a long time […] you have to pass it before you really serve them through your platform.”

Source: Solv Protocol

With over 25,000 BTC already locked in Solv’s protocol — worth more than $2 billion — Chow said the firm is now building infrastructure tailored to institutional needs, with an emphasis on regulatory and cultural requirements.

Magazine: TV hit Peaky Blinders to launch crypto game, FIFA Rivals on Polkadot: Web3 Gamer

Major European cryptocurrency investment firm 21Shares has filed for a spot Sui exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the United States, marking another step in its expansion to the US market.

21Shares on April 30 submitted the Form S-1 registration for a spot Sui (SUI) ETF to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Called the 21Shares Sui ETF, the proposed ETF will issue common shares of beneficial interest by seeking to track the performance of SUI held by 21Shares’ US subsidiary.

The US filing comes a year after 21Shares started trading the 21Shares Sui Staking exchange-traded product in Europe in July 2024, with its first listings on Euronext Paris and Euronext Amsterdam.

No ticker or planned exchange yet

The 128-page filing does not specify on which US exchange the new SUI ETF is expected to debut trading. The ETF also doesn’t have a ticker symbol yet.

“There is no certainty that there will be liquidity available on the exchange or that the market price will be in line with the NAV [net asset value] or the principal market NAV at any given time,” it states.

An excerpt from the S-1 Form for 21Shares Sui ETF. Source: SEC

The filing highlighted that the ETF aims to provide exposure to SUI by holding the tokens directly, without utilizing leverage, derivatives or engaging in speculative trading.

Canary Capital was the first to file for Sui ETF

21Shares is not the first company to file for a Sui ETF in the US. Canary Capital, a US-based crypto investment firm, filed a Form S-1 registration for a spot Sui ETF on March 17.

Subsequently, Cboe BZX Exchange asked US regulators for clearance to list Canary’s Sui ETF in early April.

Sui-based ETPs have already been trading in Europe, with some of such products including 21Shares Sui staking ETP and VanEck Sui ETP.

Related: More than 70 US crypto ETFs await SEC decision this year — Bloomberg

According to the latest CoinShares update, Sui-based ETPs had $400 million in assets under management as of April 25.

Sui (SUI) ETP products had $400 million in AUM as of April 25, 2025. Source: CoinShares

Year-to-date, Sui ETPs have seen $72 million of inflows, with a fresh $20.7 million coming in just last week.

The latest ETF filing by 21Shares is yet another product joining a massive list of crypto ETFs awaiting the SEC’s decision.

Source: Eric Balchunas

According to Bloomberg ETF analysts Eric Balchunas and James Seyffart, there were at least 72 new crypto ETF filings on the SEC’s table as of May 1.

Magazine: Bitcoin $100K hopes on ice, SBF’s mysterious prison move: Hodler’s Digest, April 20 – 26

Amid the intensifying global race to tokenize real-world assets, the market is still too nascent for institutional adoption, according to Chris Yin, the co-founder and CEO of Galaxy-backed RWA platform Plume.

Institutional capital is yet to enter the RWA market, and it will take some time for institutions to see its value, Yin told Cointelegraph on the sidelines of Token2049 in Dubai.

“These things move incredibly slowly, you have to show value, you have to show adoption first,” Yin said, comparing RWA’s currently developing stages with the early days of Bitcoin (BTC) and stablecoins.

“Only now, 10 years later, are they beginning to think about using the stablecoin. The same thing is going to happen in tokenized assets or tokenization,” Yin said.

Tokenized RWAs are far smaller than $21 billion

Yin questioned the accuracy of existing market estimates, which suggest the RWA sector is worth more than $21 billion.

“I tend to think that one, all the data is wrong, and two, the perspective that most people have is wrong with this, which is I take this $21 billion in assets,” Yin said.

According to the exec, the real RWA market cap figure is “more like” $10 billion, mostly including Treasury bills and gold, and just a “bit of private credit.”

Total RWA market chart and main components as of April 27, 2025. Source: RWA.xyz

RWA.xyz suggests that the total market capitalization of the RWA market amounted to roughly $17.4 billion as of April 27, with private credit accounting for almost 60% of all RWAs, while Treasury’s and commodities share was 27% and 8%, respectively.

Private credit is not the main driver for RWAs

Estimating the size of the global RWA market is extremely difficult, especially on the private side, where data is “fragmented and often inaccessible,” Stobox co-founder Ross Shemeliak told Cointelegraph.

According to Stobox’s estimations, tokenized Treasurys and bonds must account for the majority of RWAs today, or between 60–65%.

Stobox’s estimations of the RWA market. Source: Stobox

“Crucially, 99.9% of all companies in the world are private, and nearly all of them are untapped candidates for tokenization,” Shemeliak said, adding that such companies typically struggle with access to capital and liquidity.

“Tokenization provides an entirely new mechanism for fundraising, investor engagement, and cap table transparency,” he noted.

Institutions are here for the money

Plume CEO Yin highlighted the nature of institutional capital, which tends to move in while markets reach a bigger scale in order to make some money.

“I think people tend to forget what’s going on with institutions and the real world,” Yin said. “So the reason why tokenized assets are interesting to them is because they are looking for an angle to make more money, not to save money, not to do efficiency.”

Plume CEO Chris Yin at Token2049 in Dubai. Source: Plume

“Nobody cares about that, especially Larry Fink, who runs a $12 trillion asset manager,” Yin said, adding that BlackRock’s money market fund has been successful, but its $2.5 billion assets are tiny given the company’s net assets.

Related: Deloitte predicts $4T tokenized real estate on blockchain by 2035

With the current modest size of the RWA market, the industry should currently rely more on the native community, Yin said, adding:

“There are zero institutions putting money onchain. They are trying to actually suck money out of the ecosystem. Their products try to sell new things to crypto. Not putting money here.”

“Yes, RWA tokenization is small today, just like Bitcoin was in 2013,” Stobox’s Shemeliak admitted.

However, tokenized assets are “fundamentally institutional from day one” as they provide regulated securities, yield-bearing instruments, and financial contracts that require legal compliance and governance.

“Tokenizing RWAs without institutional involvement is like trying to build a stock exchange without regulators, custodians or settlement layers,” he said, adding:

“The innovation may start with startups and Web3 protocols, but for serious volume, you need institutions, fund managers, underwriters, legal advisors, and regulated platforms.”

Magazine: Ethereum is destroying the competition in the $16.1T TradFi tokenization race

Amid the intensifying global race to tokenize real-world assets, the market is still too nascent for institutional adoption, according to Chris Yin, the co-founder and CEO of Galaxy-backed RWA platform Plume.

Institutional capital is yet to enter the RWA market, and it will take some time for institutions to see its value, Yin told Cointelegraph on the sidelines of Token2049 in Dubai.

“These things move incredibly slowly, you have to show value, you have to show adoption first,” Yin said, comparing RWA’s currently developing stages with the early days of Bitcoin (BTC) and stablecoins.

“Only now, 10 years later, are they beginning to think about using the stablecoin. The same thing is going to happen in tokenized assets or tokenization,” Yin said.

Tokenized RWAs are far smaller than $21 billion

Yin questioned the accuracy of existing market estimates, which suggest the RWA sector is worth more than $21 billion.

“I tend to think that one, all the data is wrong, and two, the perspective that most people have is wrong with this, which is I take this $21 billion in assets,” Yin said.

According to the exec, the real RWA market cap figure is “more like” $10 billion, mostly including Treasury bills and gold, and just a “bit of private credit.”

Total RWA market chart and main components as of April 27, 2025. Source: RWA.xyz

RWA.xyz suggests that the total market capitalization of the RWA market amounted to roughly $17.4 billion as of April 27, with private credit accounting for almost 60% of all RWAs, while Treasury’s and commodities share was 27% and 8%, respectively.

Private credit is not the main driver for RWAs

Estimating the size of the global RWA market is extremely difficult, especially on the private side, where data is “fragmented and often inaccessible,” Stobox co-founder Ross Shemeliak told Cointelegraph.

According to Stobox’s estimations, tokenized Treasurys and bonds must account for the majority of RWAs today, or between 60–65%.

“Crucially, 99.9% of all companies in the world are private, and nearly all of them are untapped candidates for tokenization,” Shemeliak said, adding that such companies typically struggle with access to capital and liquidity.

“Tokenization provides an entirely new mechanism for fundraising, investor engagement, and cap table transparency,” he noted.

Institutions are here for the money

Plume CEO Yin highlighted the nature of institutional capital, which tends to move in while markets reach a bigger scale in order to make some money.

“I think people tend to forget what’s going on with institutions and the real world,” Yin said. “So the reason why tokenized assets are interesting to them is because they are looking for an angle to make more money, not to save money, not to do efficiency.”

Plume CEO Chris Yin at Token2049 in Dubai. Source: Plume

“Nobody cares about that, especially Larry Fink, who runs a $12 trillion asset manager,” Yin said, adding that BlackRock’s money market fund has been successful, but its $2.5 billion assets are tiny given the company’s net assets.

Related: Deloitte predicts $4T tokenized real estate on blockchain by 2035

With the current modest size of the RWA market, the industry should currently rely more on the native community, Yin said, adding:

“There are zero institutions putting money onchain. They are trying to actually suck money out of the ecosystem. Their products try to sell new things to crypto. Not putting money here.”

“Yes, RWA tokenization is small today, just like Bitcoin was in 2013,” Stobox’s Shemeliak admitted.

However, tokenized assets are “fundamentally institutional from day one” as they provide regulated securities, yield-bearing instruments, and financial contracts that require legal compliance and governance.

“Tokenizing RWAs without institutional involvement is like trying to build a stock exchange without regulators, custodians or settlement layers,” he said, adding:

“The innovation may start with startups and Web3 protocols, but for serious volume, you need institutions, fund managers, underwriters, legal advisors, and regulated platforms.”

Magazine: Ethereum is destroying the competition in the $16.1T TradFi tokenization race

Amid the intensifying global race to tokenize real-world assets, the market is still too nascent for institutional adoption, according to Chris Yin, the co-founder and CEO of Galaxy-backed RWA platform Plume.

Institutional capital is yet to enter the RWA market, and it will take some time for institutions to see its value, Yin told Cointelegraph on the sidelines of Token2049 in Dubai.

“These things move incredibly slowly, you have to show value, you have to show adoption first,” Yin said, comparing RWA’s currently developing stages with the early days of Bitcoin (BTC) and stablecoins.

“Only now, 10 years later, are they beginning to think about using the stablecoin. The same thing is going to happen in tokenized assets or tokenization,” Yin said.

Tokenized RWAs are far smaller than $21 billion

Yin questioned the accuracy of existing market estimates, which suggest the RWA sector is worth more than $21 billion.

“I tend to think that one, all the data is wrong, and two, the perspective that most people have is wrong with this, which is I take this $21 billion in assets,” Yin said.

According to the exec, the real RWA market cap figure is “more like” $10 billion, mostly including Treasury bills and gold, and just a “bit of private credit.”

Total RWA market chart and main components as of April 27, 2025. Source: RWA.xyz

RWA.xyz suggests that the total market capitalization of the RWA market amounted to roughly $17.4 billion as of April 27, with private credit accounting for almost 60% of all RWAs, while Treasury’s and commodities share was 27% and 8%, respectively.

Private credit is not the main driver for RWAs

Estimating the size of the global RWA market is extremely difficult, especially on the private side, where data is “fragmented and often inaccessible,” Stobox co-founder Ross Shemeliak told Cointelegraph.

According to Stobox’s estimations, tokenized Treasurys and bonds must account for the majority of RWAs today, or between 60–65%.

“Crucially, 99.9% of all companies in the world are private, and nearly all of them are untapped candidates for tokenization,” Shemeliak said, adding that such companies typically struggle with access to capital and liquidity.

“Tokenization provides an entirely new mechanism for fundraising, investor engagement, and cap table transparency,” he noted.

Institutions are here for the money

Plume CEO Yin highlighted the nature of institutional capital, which tends to move in while markets reach a bigger scale in order to make some money.

“I think people tend to forget what’s going on with institutions and the real world,” Yin said. “So the reason why tokenized assets are interesting to them is because they are looking for an angle to make more money, not to save money, not to do efficiency.”

Plume CEO Chris Yin at Token2049 in Dubai. Source: Plume

“Nobody cares about that, especially Larry Fink, who runs a $12 trillion asset manager,” Yin said, adding that BlackRock’s money market fund has been successful, but its $2.5 billion assets are tiny given the company’s net assets.

Related: Deloitte predicts $4T tokenized real estate on blockchain by 2035

With the current modest size of the RWA market, the industry should currently rely more on the native community, Yin said, adding:

“There are zero institutions putting money onchain. They are trying to actually suck money out of the ecosystem. Their products try to sell new things to crypto. Not putting money here.”

“Yes, RWA tokenization is small today, just like Bitcoin was in 2013,” Stobox’s Shemeliak admitted.

However, tokenized assets are “fundamentally institutional from day one” as they provide regulated securities, yield-bearing instruments, and financial contracts that require legal compliance and governance.

“Tokenizing RWAs without institutional involvement is like trying to build a stock exchange without regulators, custodians or settlement layers,” he said, adding:

“The innovation may start with startups and Web3 protocols, but for serious volume, you need institutions, fund managers, underwriters, legal advisors, and regulated platforms.”

Magazine: Ethereum is destroying the competition in the $16.1T TradFi tokenization race

Banking giant Morgan Stanley reportedly plans to list cryptocurrencies on its E*Trade investment brokerage and trading platform.

According to a May 1 Bloomberg report, the firm intends to list crypto assets on E*Trade in 2026. The plan is still in early development, and the bank is said to be exploring partnerships with established crypto firms to power the service. Internal discussions about cryptocurrency support reportedly began in late 2024.

E*Trade homepage. Source: E*Trade

This would not be Morgan Stanley’s first exposure to digital assets. The bank’s wealthiest clients have had access to crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and futures for some time, with the firm’s advisers allowed to pitch Bitcoin ETFs since August 2024.

Related: Morgan Stanley to explore crypto offerings for clients — CEO

Regulatory tailwinds push crypto forward

The news follows previous reports that Morgan Stanley was considering adding cryptocurrency trading to its E*Trade online brokerage platform in early January. The reports at the time cited the expectations of a friendlier crypto regulatory environment.

The move comes amid an increasingly favorable regulatory environment in the United States following the election of President Donald Trump, who campaigned on a pro-crypto platform and is personally involved in several blockchain ventures.

Morgan Stanley did not respond to Cointelegraph’s inquiry by publication.

Related: Morgan Stanley discloses $188M in BlackRock Bitcoin ETF holdings

The first 30 days of the Trump administration brought significant changes to the local crypto industry. More recently, US crypto proponents have shown optimism following the swearing-in of pro-crypto Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins.

The SEC had significantly changed its stance even before Atkins took office. In late February, the agency had already paused multiple cryptocurrency enforcement cases with imminent deadlines.

Trump’s own involvement with the crypto industry, paired with his pro-crypto stance, has raised concerns over potential conflicts of interest. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren recently called on government officials to address questions related to Trump’s memecoin and his media company.

Senator Jon Ossoff recently expressed support for impeaching Trump over his meeting of the top holders of his Trump Official (TRUMP) memecoin. He said that “he is granting audiences to people who buy his memecoin,” adding:

“When the sitting president of the United States is selling access for what are effectively payments directly to him. There is no question that that rises to the level of an impeachable offense.”

Magazine: ZK-proofs are bringing smart contracts to Bitcoin — BitcoinOS and Starknet

MultiBank Group, the world’s largest financial derivatives institution based in Dubai, has signed a landmark $3 billion real-world asset (RWA) tokenization agreement with United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based real estate giant MAG and blockchain infrastructure provider Mavryk.

The deal represents the largest RWA tokenization initiative globally to date and highlights the upcoming launch of MultiBank’s native utility token, MBG, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph.

The partnership will bring MAG’s ultra-luxury real estate projects — including The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Dubai, Creekside and the Keturah Reserve — onto the blockchain via MultiBank.io’s regulated RWA marketplace.

Once tokenized, these assets will be available to global investors and will generate daily yield for holders directly on the platform.

“$3B worth of MAG’s real estate will be tokenized as individual RWA tokens on MultiBank’s platform, each represented on the Mavryk blockchain, as the underlying layer-1 infrastructure,” Talal Moafaq Al Gaddah, senior executive vice chairman of MAG, told Cointelegraph.

Al Gaddah added that “$MBG token provides ecosystem utility, including trading discounts, early access to properties, and a deflationary buyback-and-burn model.”

Related: BlackRock, five others account for 88% of all tokenized treasury issuance

MultiBank tokenizes MAG real estate

MAG, one of the UAE’s most prominent developers, will contribute its premium real estate portfolio for tokenization.

Mavryk will handle blockchain issuance and DeFi integrations, while MultiBank Group will manage regulatory compliance, liquidity and governance, with the MBG token at the core of the system.

“Tokenized assets issued by MultiBank will have dual utility. Within the MultiBank Group, they can be used as collateral for derivatives, creating a seamless bridge between traditional finance and tokenized assets,” Al Gaddah said.

He said that these tokens are fully interoperable with the broader Mavryk DeFi ecosystem.

The tokenized treasuries market is rising. Source: RWA.xyzMBG token adds platform utility

The MBG token will power staking, fee payments, VIP tiers and user rewards. It also features a buyback-and-burn mechanism tied to platform revenues, creating long-term value for both institutional and retail participants.

The platform aims to scale beyond the initial $3 billion to as much as $10 billion in tokenized assets.

“The goal is to tokenize high-value, income-generating real estate assets that have traditionally been difficult to access or trade.” 

The announcement comes amid renewed interest in RWA tokenization.

On April 30, BlackRock filed to create digital ledger technology shares from one of the firm’s money market funds, which will leverage blockchain technology to maintain a mirror record of share ownership for investors.

The DLT shares will track BlackRock’s BLF Treasury Trust Fund (TTTXX), which may only be purchased from BlackRock Advisors and The Bank of New York Mellon (BNY).

The money market fund holds over $150 million worth of assets, invested almost entirely in US Treasury bills and cash.

Magazine: TV hit Peaky Blinders to launch crypto game, FIFA Rivals on Polkadot: Web3 Gamer

Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX will be tapping a US President Donald Trump-related stablecoin to settle its $2 billion investment into Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.

The World Liberty Financial USD (USD1) US dollar-pegged stablecoin was launched by the Trump-linked World Liberty Financial (WLFI) crypto platform in March 2025.

MGX will use the USD1 stablecoin for its $2 billion investment into Binance exchange, announced Eric Trump, the son of the US president and the executive vice president of the Trump Organization, during a panel discussion at Token 2049 Dubai.

Source: Cointelegraph

MGX announced its $2 billion stablecoin investment into Binance on March 12, marking the first institutional investment in the exchange and potentially the biggest funding deal in the entire Web3 industry.

At the time, Binance declined Cointelegraph’s request to disclose what stablecoin was used in the transaction.  

This marks the Abu Dhabi-based investment firm’s first venture into the cryptocurrency space.

Related: Trump turned crypto from ‘oppressed industry’ to ‘centerpiece’ of US strategy

Opinion by: Amitej Gajjala, co-founder and CEO of Kernel DAO

The restaking narrative has moved fast — from side conversations in validator circles to the forefront of DeFi infrastructure discussions.

It’s not hard to see why. DefiLlama states that major liquid restaking protocols now hold over $12 billion in total value locked (TVL), with dozens of middleware services aligning their security with Ethereum’s economic base layer. What started as an idea to increase capital efficiency for validators has evolved into a serious attempt to redefine how security is provisioned across decentralized systems.

While restaking is gaining momentum among crypto-native participants, institutions — the kind with multi-year horizons and regulatory constraints — still keep DeFi at arm’s length.

Not because the rewards aren’t attractive. Risk is still poorly understood, isolated and mitigated.

Restaking can change that.

Adding friction — where it’s needed most

Restaking isn’t about reducing risk to zero; it’s about introducing friction, which deters bad actors without killing protocol composability.

Enabling validators to opt into securing new protocols using already-staked assets, restaking creates a second validation layer. This strengthens middleware like oracles, bridges and data availability layers without bootstrapping entirely new trust networks.

Unlike traditional validator sets, restaking aligns existing economic incentives with broader infrastructure needs. Instead of competing for security, protocols can now share it — with customizable slashing conditions, service-specific operator sets and dynamic risk parameters.

Recent: Unlocking the potential of dormant Bitcoin in DeFi

For institutions, this is meaningful; it signals the beginning of a modular security stack, where exposure can be configured and audited per protocol.

Slashing becomes a risk class — not a red flag

One of the main blockers for institutional staking has been slashing: the risk that validator misbehavior (or simply technical error) could lead to capital loss.

Restaking introduces slashing segmentation. On all major platforms, operators choose which services they secure. Slashing, therefore, is scoped to the context of misbehavior — not the entire validator lifecycle.

This distinction matters. It transforms slashing from an unpredictable liability into a quantifiable, bounded risk, similar to how fixed-income traders model default risk.

It also opens the door to restaking insurance markets, actuarial modeling and structured risk products.

Risk offloading through exposure diversification

DeFi’s volatility isn’t going away. Price swings, gas spikes and liquidation cascades are part of the terrain. But restaking enables cross-protocol exposure less correlated than holding multiple tokens.

A validator restaking into a curated mix of oracle, bridge and data availability layer services fundamentally builds a portfolio of security commitments — each with different risk and reward profiles. That’s diversification in the validator economy, not just in the asset layer.

It also makes network-level attacks harder. Restaking dilutes attack vectors by spreading economic security across a web of services, making DeFi’s attack surface less monolithic and more modular.

Oracles get more credible

A single point of failure in many DeFi protocols? Oracle feeds. And it’s not just flash loans — even minor price feed delays can be exploited.

ScienceDirect research shows that staking-based oracle models significantly reduce manipulation risks, especially when tied to performance-based incentives and slashing conditions.

Restaking supports this by allowing oracle operators to secure feeds with economic weight, aligning truthfulness with profit. When misreporting can cost you slashed Ether (ETH), the game theory changes.

This creates stronger guarantees for protocols relying on price data — a prerequisite for serious capital to flow in.

Restaking as the institutional wedge

Institutions won’t enter DeFi because of vibes or community incentives. They’ll enter when infrastructure risk can be scoped, quantified and mitigated when the stack looks more like a layered security model than a black box of smart contracts.

Restaking isn’t the whole answer. But it is one of the first scalable primitives to make DeFi security modular, composable and economically aligned.

As regulation matures and tokenized finance becomes more interoperable with TradFi, restaking may be the layer that bridges trust between networks and entire financial systems.

We’re not there yet. But the path looks a lot clearer than it did a year ago.

Opinion by: Amitej Gajjala, co-founder and CEO of Kernel DAO.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Decentralized stablecoin platform Ethena has partnered with The Open Network (TON) to make its stablecoins available to Telegram’s user base of over one billion people.

The partnership, announced on May 1 at Token2049 in Dubai, will see the deployment of Ethena’s USDe (USDE) and Ethena Staked USDe (sUSDe) natively within the TON blockchain.

The sUSDe variant will be integrated under the name tsUSDe, enabling Telegram users to access US dollar-denominated savings directly within Telegram.

Source: Kirill Malev

The deployment involves two major Ethena integrations, including one in the custodial Wallet in Telegram and the second in the TON Space wallet, a self-custodial wallet integrated in the messenger.

One of Ethena’s “most meaningful launches”

Announcing the news on X, Ethena described its TON integration as “one of Ethena’s most meaningful launches to date.”

“Telegram has truly global distribution across its billion users, with presence in emerging economies in regions like Asia, Africa and Latin America,” it added.

Source: Ethena

According to Ethena, the integration will be progressively rolled out in stages in May, as the deployment involves three major product lines, including support by Wallet in Telegram, non-custodial wallets like TON Space and TON Keeper, and decentralized finance (DeFi) applications on TON.

USDe is coming to TON via LayerZero

The partnership marks the beginning of a long-term collaboration between Ethena and the TON Foundation, with future plans potentially targeting Ethena-enabled neobanking, peer-to-peer payments and DeFi lending and trading.

While Ethena’s sUSDe has been redeveloped entirely to be TON native smart contracts, in a new asset called tsUSDe, the native USDe stablecoin is planned to be introduced on TON via the LayerZero interoperability protocol.

Source: Ethena

Additionally, eligible tsUSDe holders within major TON wallets will receive a 10% annual percentage yield in TON, along with Ethena rewards on balances of up to 10,000 tsUSDe per wallet.

Ethena is the fourth-largest stablecoin on market

The announcement comes amid Ethena’s USDe stablecoin ranking the fourth-largest stablecoin by market value, following Sky’s (formerly Maker) USDS (USDS), Circle’s USDC (USDC), and the world’s largest stablecoin, Tether’s USDt (USDT).

At the time of writing, USDE had a market capitalization of $4.7 billion, 39% down from USDC’s market cap and just a tiny 3% of USDT’s market cap, according to CoinGecko.

Top five stablecoins by market capitalization. Source: CoinGecko

The TON Foundation has been closely collaborating with Tether, as well, connecting TON to Tether’s USDt ecosystem with LayerZero in February 2024.

As part of its ambitious scaling plans, TON expects to connect its ecosystem to at least 100 chains, including Ethereum, Tron and Solana.

Magazine: Bitcoin $100K hopes on ice, SBF’s mysterious prison move: Hodler’s Digest, April 20 – 26